


till i lie with you

by thefudge



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Angst, Cousin Incest, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Hate to Love, I LOVE PAIN I LOVE ANGST, Morally Ambiguous Character, Mutual Pining, Shakespearian, meet me in the pit, richard III themes, smidgen of smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 10:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13762185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: Shuri glowers at him. She thinks she's got him pegged. He suppresses a smile. Guess he'll have to change her mind.  (Set during the movie)





	till i lie with you

**Author's Note:**

> i have to wake up in like 3 hours, SO ENJOY THIS TAILOR-MADE JOURNEY OF YEARNING AND PAIN.
> 
> (also apologies for any editing mistakes, i'm literally a deadbrained gobling rn)

**Lady Anne.** And thou unfit for any place but hell.  
**Richard III (Duke of Gloucester).** Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.  
**Lady Anne.** Some dungeon.  
**Richard III (Duke of Gloucester).** Your bed-chamber.  
**Lady Anne.** I'll rest betide the chamber where thou liest!  
**Richard III (Duke of Gloucester).** So will it, madam till I lie with you.

( _Richard III_ , Act I, Scene II)

***

 

It's true he yearns to be king, because there is no other title that will compensate the cruel and arbitrary loss of family and home. 

But he doesn't envy T'Challa. It's not him that reminds Erik of what could have been, of what he'd been denied. 

No. It's his sister. 

Shuri, with her brilliant mind and fierce ideals and unspoiled smile. Shuri, who has made a small kingdom for herself in her laboratory, who thrives on her own designs. 

He might have walked the same path, might have mirrored her self-sufficiency. 

Instead, he is forced to wrestle a kingdom away from his cousin. 

 _I could've been your goddamn engineer, your architect,_ he thinks bitterly. _But you didn't want me._

So when Shuri steps forward and tells them that Erik Stevens is an American Black Operative, that he's nothing but a _mercenary_ , he can't help the itch under his tongue. 

"That's not my name, Princess."

There's an irreverence to his voice, almost like he's teasing her. But in fact, he's challenging her. Willing her to see. _That ain't me._  

Is she as blind as her brother? 

Shuri glowers at him. She thinks she's got him pegged.

He suppresses a smile. 

Guess he'll have to change her mind. 

 

 

Erik stares down into the hungry whirlpool, satisfied that T'Challa has gone under. He feels like he has baptized this water. 

But there's no time to savor this moment. 

"Seize the princess," he orders the guards, hand outstretched towards Nakia and Ramonda who are trying to flee with Shuri. 

Nakia puts up a good fight, but they are outnumbered. Shuri grips her mother's wrists. "Run, Mama. Find allies. Be safe for me."

Ramonda protests with all her strength, but Shuri won't allow this useless sacrifice. She strikes away from them and surrenders herself to the Dora Milaje. 

"Let them go! I come willingly," she says, staring directly at her cousin, the family she never wanted. 

Erik grins. He knew she would not disappoint. Her cheeks are stained with tears but she doesn't flinch away from his smile. 

In fact, she seems to want to come forward. Is she stupid enough to try an attack? He's curious. He beckons her to him.

Shuri detaches herself from the guards and steps into the pool of water. 

Erik almost _wants_ her to come at him, to feel her small fists beat against his chest, to witness the stormy rage unfurling across those pristine features. He wants her to feel an _inch_ of what he feels. 

But as she comes closer to him, the hem of her orange dress turning a deep red in the water, her eyes move past him towards the waterfall. 

And she darts, faster than expected, towards the water's edge.

She's quick, but he's quicker.

He bars her way with his arm, grabbing her by the waist and pinning her against him. 

"Don't lose your head now, Princess. You're more useful to me alive." 

His wet skin against her thin dress is another form of punishment, another indignity. But for who? Him or her? 

She raises her chin, her eyes glimmering with that unbroken spirit of the young. "Don't worry, _Cousin_. I'm not making it that easy for you. I just wanted to see..."

He understands, though his face doesn't betray it. She wants - she _needs_ to see a corpse. But she won't get that privilege. She won't get to hold T'Challa in her arms one last time. 

Erik drags her towards the water's edge, keeping her secure in his arms. 

"Take a look." 

And she does. Her tears spill directly into the waterfall. 

Erik watches them fall, jaw clenched. 

 

 

When she has sobbed her heart out, she turns in his arms and her head almost collapses into his chest - but she collects herself, remembering and never forgetting that this is her brother's killer. 

Erik releases her and she falls to her knees in the water.

He loves and hates the image of her like this. 

 

 

She sleeps in her mourning clothes, arms clasped tightly around herself. He's allowed her to keep her quarters, but she can't lock herself in. 

That's why, on the third day of her lethargy he waltzes in uninvited. 

Yesterday's food sits untouched on the nightstand.

She can barely muster enough energy to snap at him for coming into her room. 

"I thought you weren't a quitter, Princess." 

She covers her eyes with her hand. " _Please_...go...and fuck yourself." 

The vernacular is gauche on her tongue. Almost sweet. She's never had many reasons to curse someone.  

He chuckles. "You're cute, you know that? But I don't have time for your teen angst bullshit." 

Her eyes snap open. She can't believe he said that to her. She grabs the plate on her nightstand and throws it at him.

Erik dodges without much effort.

She notices he's dressed in full regalia with the crown around his throat. She wants him to choke on it. 

"You're gonna be present for my coronation, Princess. And you're gonna make an effort. Otherwise, the folks you still hold dear are gonna pay the price."

Shuri glares at him. "Oh, what a true king you are." 

"It's your laws that put me here, don't forget."

"An antiquated law that should have been changed a long time ago!" she snaps, clenching her fists. 

Erik smiles. "See? We don't always disagree." 

 

 

 

He drinks the sticky juice of the Heart-Shaped Herb and as he lies down in the sand, he seems to fall through the grains, pulled by a mysterious gravitational force. 

The ancestral plane. 

What he finds instead is Oakland. He is back in the old apartment. He has fallen not through sand, but through time. 

He doesn't want to be here, yet this is the only "here" he has ever known.  

 _I should have taken you back long ago. Instead, we are both abandoned here_ , his father tells him with tears in his eyes. 

 _Or maybe your home is the one that's lost...that's why they can't find us_ , he says with the simplicity of the child and the intricate grief of the adult. Most of all, he wishes he could tell his father that he did right by him, that he did all he _could_. But the words never come, because to commit to such emotions would soften his resolve. 

He screams as he emerges from the sands, arms and legs flailing out of control.

His breath is ragged, he is glaring daggers at the priestesses. How was this supposed to give him the Panther's strength? It's only weakened him.

"Did y'all think you could poison me?!" he cries out, seething. 

And then he sees Shuri in the corner of his eye. She's kneeling by his side in the sands. 

"Just _breathe_ , you idiot. You're scaring everyone."

He wants to grab her pretty little neck and drag her into the depths he's been to, but she seems to defy his temper.

"This is what's _supposed_ to happen. You think spiritual awakening is a walk in the park?" she says and hands him a flask of water. He takes it begrudgingly.

He notices she's staring at his face too intently. He raises a hand to his cheek and the fingers come off wet.

He curses under his breath and turns his head away. 

Shuri quickly rises to her feet, as if she's been caught doing something highly inappropriate.

She folds her arms across her chest. She shouldn't have intervened. But he looked ready to kill everyone. And she doesn't want to see what else he can do.

 _Why was he crying?_ A question she pushes to the back of her mind.

 

 

Erik tells them in no uncertain terms to burn the entire bed of Heart-Shaped Herbs. The high priestess issues a fervid protest. This is _tradition_ , after all. Every future king must submit to it. Without it, Wakanda will surely crumble. 

"Tradition," Erik drawls, staring over his shoulder at Shuri. "Thought we agreed some traditions need to die." 

"But my King, this cannot be allowed to die -" the priestess resists. 

Erik is swift and merciless. He goes directly for her throat, raising her frail body towards the ceiling. 

"When I tell you to do something, I _mean_ that shit."

"Erik!" Shuri calls out with enough strength to make him pause. When he turns around, she is already holding the pyre against the violet petals. 

" _Do_ it. Burn it all," he instructs, eyes glimmering with something like thirst. 

Shuri stares back with a corrupt mixture of hatred and doubt and lights the herb. The other priestesses follow her example.

Soon, the cavern is bathed in a crepuscular golden. Erik stands naked in the center. He feels like a newborn god, but no one told him this would not bring him the satisfaction he craved.

Still, when he sees Shuri with the pyre in her hand and fire in her eyes, he thinks, _hell, it's worth it._

 

 

He won't allow her access into her lab for the first month, and when he finally does, she finds everything changed. He's modified the codes and her personal imprint and has installed a sequence of firewalls that surpasses her expectations.

The initial shock makes her loose with her words.

"How did you - how did you do that?" 

Erik smirks, tapping the side of his forehead. "You're not the only one with brains, Princess. You read my file. You know what I can do."

"My systems are impossible to hack," she persists with furrowed eyebrows. 

"Yeah...gotta give it to you, took me nearly a month, so you're pretty good."

" _Pretty_ good?" she echoes with disdain. 

"Fine," he chuckles. "You're damn good. But you have your weak spots."

Shuri's cheeks turn a bright red. "You got lucky. Next time -"

"Next time?" he questions. She bites her tongue. Of course, he thinks he'll be king eternal. She's itching to show him how temporary his status is.

But she refrains. Her scientific mind trumps her pride.

"Show me, then."

"What?"

"Show me the weak spots." 

She thinks he will deny her request and probably laugh in her face for good measure.

But he actually pulls up a chair, sits down in front of the screens, and takes out his glasses.

Shuri does a double-take. "You..."

"Tell anyone and you're dead meat," he mock-threatens and she is discomfited by his wry humor. She is also disturbed by the quaint, _mundane_ quality that a pair of glasses can lend a person.

She focuses on the information, blocking the rest of him out. It's a strategic move. She must acquire as much knowledge as possible. 

But she must never forget who she's dealing with. 

 

 

Except, except he asks her questions too.

He wants to _know_ about her inventions. 

"...I've been wracking my brains, trying to figure out how you did this, cuz it's some next level shit." 

She suppresses the compliment, she clenches her teeth around it. 

"Knowing how to manipulate the Vibranium is half the work," she says, wishing to efface herself. 

"Nah," he shakes his head. "You need actual vision and technique to get this off the ground." 

Shuri sinks her nails in the side of her arm. "Are you trying to get me to work for you? Because the flattery won't work." 

Erik cocks his head to the side and watches her for a moment. Like he hasn't actually decided what to do with her. But now that it's on the table...

He takes a step into her personal space. "What _will_ work, Princess?"

"N-Nothing." She hates the tremor in her voice. "So, really, you kept me alive for nothing."

Erik narrows his eyes.  His lips are a thin line. He wants to say something, but is holding back. 

Shuri smiles a bitter smile. "I've read your file, _Cousin_. I know your kills are up in the thousands. But the exercise is empty for you. You don't actually _like_  to get your hands dirty, do you?" 

She doesn't really know where this realization came from, but it feels good to throw it out there, see if it lands. 

It does. A shadow falls across his face. He doesn't say anything, and perhaps the silence is enough. 

He signals for the guards to remove her from the lab. 

 

 

 

But is she _sure_ he won't kill her?

One night, she feels the foreign weight on the side of the bed and she freezes under the sheets. She screws her eyes shut.  

He thinks she's asleep. Or maybe he knows she's awake. Maybe he wants her to listen. 

But he says nothing again. 

He's punishing her, letting her wonder what he'll do next.

Shuri holds her breath. 

 _Just do it, just do it. Whatever it is_ , she thinks desperately.

He reaches forward and runs the back of his hand over the exposed side of her jaw. Caressing or threatening, Shuri can't be sure.

She suppresses a shiver. 

"I'm blood of your blood," he says quietly. "One day, you'll learn to appreciate that." 

She could open her eyes. She could spit the words back in his face. She could wrench her face away from his touch.

But she doesn't. 

She lies very still as his knuckles map the line of her throat. He must be able to sense her heightened pulse. 

When she thinks she won't be able to bear it any longer, he removes his hand. 

He disappears soon after, like a ghost that was never there.

But it wasn't a dream. That much she knows.

She curls into herself and lets the tears fall into her pillow. 

 

 

She's the only family he's got left. That's what she doesn't understand. 

 

 

His proximity is like a slap in the face, like knuckles on her jaw. But he pointedly offers his elbow and she's in no position to refuse. She slips her hand through his arm. 

They both walk down the main street, followed by throngs of guards and subjects garbed in festive wear. 

Civilians crowd in on all sides, waving flags and cheering enthusiastically as they partake in the ceremony.

Shuri's heart clenches in her chest. Erik must have served them a web of lies to make them believe this government is just.

 _Or maybe he didn't_ , she thinks. Maybe Wakanda bears its own sins. Maybe patriarchies are always fraught, always on the brink of collapse. Like a snake eternally swallowing its tail, perpetuity without progress.

 _And who am I in this world?_ she wonders. _Who am I in Erik's world?_

She has her suspicions. Her new wardrobe is no coincidence. Nor is the heavy jewelry. But she is not ready to admit it. 

He holds her coiled hand in his arm, close to his heart. He smiles almost benevolently at the crowds, but she can see the tension at the corners of his mouth. 

"You shouldn't have burnt all the Heart-Shaped Herbs," she tells him with a catch in her voice.

"You burned them too," he reminds her, tightening his grip. 

"You're denying the past and the future," she persists, staring at the hopeful crowd. "Do you think this present will last?" 

"You better hope it does," he mutters in her ear. "Cuz you're a part of it."  

 

 

Yes, he is making her look like an accomplice in public, seeing as he can't force her hand in private. 

But she knows he _could_ force her hand in private too.

And she is terrified of the moment she'll have to choose between death and submission. 

Because she's not ready to die. And she also knows he won't kill her until the very end. 

It's a game without winners. 

 

 

It's been three months since her brother's death and she prays every night that his soul has found peace. She prays for her mother, having faith in her strength, having faith that she is alive and has found shelter. She can _feel_ it, in fact. She is somewhere out there, thinking of her too.  She prays for Nakia and hopes her friend is not courting death, is not fashioning herself a martyr before her time. 

She - she prays for Erik. She prays for his death, and then quickly wipes her mouth, as if stuffing the words back in her throat.

She prays for him to find clarity.

She prays for herself, because her clarity is blurred. 

 

 

She's never been particularly fond of sunsets. The end of the day leaves her impatient because there is so much _more_ she wants to do, but Mother Nature orders her to stop. The hours in a day are never enough. She loves the dawn, the beginning of something new and thrilling and completely different. 

She read a poem once about the sun and the moon never meeting, but always chasing each other. 

She stands some feet away from him and emphatically rejects the beauty of her homeland. She does not want to be moved by the ocher shades of dusk. She does not want to witness his wonder.

He stares at the setting sun as if it were a lover. He drinks every drop of it.

She almost _envies_ such a yearning.

She thinks, _he may not understand Wakanda, but he understands this._

"Come here," he beckons absently, as if he were not really calling for her, as if it was a choice.

And Shuri grapples with this choice. Because nothing given under such circumstances is ever truly free.

But she feels so alone in this crude red light. She misses her brother so much. She misses her mother. She misses the father she knew too little. She misses the uncle who was banished. She feels the injustice of his death like a lash on her skin. 

She wonders if - if things had gone differently...if Erik had grown up here...

She closes her eyes and takes a step forward. Stands next to him in the sun. Their arms brush against each other.

Erik slips his fingers through hers, but doesn't grasp her hand. She traces the lines of his palm without ever touching him fully.

They are as fragile as the waning light. 

 

 

 

She wakes in the middle of the night with a bad feeling in her gut, like a tumor spreading to each organ, poisoning her from within.

She pulls the covers aside and slips into a thin dress robe. 

She patters down the hallway to the lab's entrance. Sealed, of course. And it would take her some time to crack the code in her present state.

But she hears someone tinkering inside.  She sees fragments of his shadow reflected in the glass.

"Erik! What are you doing in there?"

The feeling in her gut won't go away. For some reason, she pictures the _worst_. Which should actually gladden her. If he's messing with some untested prototypes, trying to push the boundaries of her work, he'll definitely get hurt. And that _could_ \- she bites her tongue.

No. Not in _her_ goddamn lab. 

"Erik, open this door right now! Erik!"

It takes him a few minutes (and she feels each one of them on her skin), but he finally releases the hatch and she gains full access.

Shuri runs into the main room with her breath in her throat. 

Erik is sitting in an armchair with a manual in his lap, glasses perched on his nose and one of her anti-bullet armors on the table before him. 

He stares at her over his glasses. 

"I thought -" she halts, pressing a hand to her stomach, "I thought you were doing something stupid."

He smiles, though it doesn't reach his eyes. "Like what?"

"Like testing out...unsafe prototypes." 

And she realizes the moment her words leave her mouth how stupid _she_ sounds. It doesn't help that he looks so goddamn domestic sitting there with his goddamn glasses. 

"Why would that be a problem to you?" he challenges with a raised eyebrow.

"You'd - you'd ruin the prototype," she says, brushing beads of sweat from her forehead. 

Erik abandons his study. He stalks towards her in that particular, _familiar_ way he did when he was attacking her brother.

"You worried about what I'll do....or are you worried on my behalf?" 

"No. Neither. I _don't_  even know why I-"

He removes his glasses and drops them on the desk behind her. Only then does she realize he's managed to back her up against it. 

"I do," he says with a kind of unrepentant ache, and grabs her chin, pulling her forward. 

Later, she will say that it was a moment of madness. Later, she will hate herself.

But his mouth descends on hers, lips seeking lips, and she can't help responding to whatever is calling her. 

This isn't her first kiss. She stole a few sloppy pecks from one of her interns when he asked her out to tea. She'd felt so rebellious, because no one found out, not even her vigilant mother.

This is nothing like that, so it is a first time in a way. But it's not rebellious, it's not sloppy. It's not something you do to feel young and alive. It is a kind of doom, a soft guillotine on her lips. She kisses because she _must_ , because if she doesn't, she will expire. 

He wraps a hand around her waist, pulling her closer, feeling her warm body underneath the thin robe. Her trembling stills as he runs a comforting hand down her back.

Her own hand clings to his collar as their mouths meet and come apart feverishly, each kiss breaking more of their resolve, each kiss making it harder to separate, each kiss ending with his teeth tugging at her lip, begging for entrance. She lets him. 

As their tongues brush against each other, the warmth becomes unbearable. He lifts her in his arms and raises her on the desk and she feels small and invincible. His hand strokes the expanse of her thigh, hitching up the dress-robe, callouses on her bare skin, tiny tendrils of electricity -

She breaks away from the kiss and he groans softly. She's depriving him of his sunset. 

"We can't - I can't - we're family -" she stutters shamefully.

Erik cradles her face in his palms. His eyes are too dark to read.

"That's why we can." And he captures her mouth so swiftly that she loses all breath and meaning and will power.

 

 

Hours later, she lies in the bathtub, half-submerged, wishing she could drown like her brother. 

 

 

 

But she doesn't drown. She sits in bed while his head is in her lap. They're both fully dressed. The only inkling of untoward intimacy is the way he toys with one of her locs, slipping it into his mouth from time to time. 

He talks to her about Oakland, about growing up with no decent prospects, no father, no guidance.

He talks about holding his dad's body in his arms and howling so loud that he couldn't speak for days.

She listens, fascinated, disturbed, sympathetic, suspicious, curious. 

Hatred has no room between them anymore, it was always a pretense. 

She knows now why he cried the night he drank from the herbs. She knows almost everything there is to know, and it does not alleviate anything. 

This is still a betrayal. 

He lifts his hand to her face. "Don't ever make me howl for you." 

 

 

(Only once does she call him by his given name. Only once.

He is kissing the inside of her thigh. She bites down on her lip until it bleeds. And whispers "N'Jadaka, please..."

He freezes, his eyes becoming the eyes of a child again, falling through the sands of time. 

He feels as if he has drunk from the herbs. He needs more. He drinks from her thighs until he can't feel his lips anymore and Shuri lets her head fall back with a moan, unable to say or recall any name.)

 

 

She beats her fists against his chest, just like he imagined it the first time. She claws away at his already marred flesh. 

"Why - did - you - _do_ \- it?"

She is straddling him, striking him, swinging her fists manically. She wants an answer he can't give. 

She wants her mother and brother back. She wants everything as it were.

Except, now, she wants _him_ too.

And these things don't go together. And she hates him.

Erik seizes her wrists when she tires herself out. He forces her to open her palms. And he kisses the center of each palm, making her pulse stutter, making everything hurt from within.

 

 

He leaves her innocent; that's what he likes to think. He never imposed himself on her. And yet, he came close. He _still_ comes close, the last time. The last time before the sky fills up with smoke. 

He is unraveling her dress, warm hand on her bare back, a feverish kiss at the base of her spine.

It is the last time she hears him say  _Erik_  without tears in her mouth.

And then, the guards cry battle. 

Because T'Challa has returned from the ashes and he's brought M'Baku's army with him.

 

 

 

"Are you hurt? Has he done anything to you?" her brother asks with barely restrained panic, suffocating her in his embrace.

Shuri weeps against his chest, because he is alive. And that means someone has to die. 

 

 

"Don't cry for me, Princess. I ain't worth the tears." 

But she does. She kneels on the tracks and covers her mouth with her hands as T'Challa drives the spear into his ribs. 

Afterwards, she pushed her brother out of the way and take her cousin's body in her arms. 

_"Don't cry for me, Princess. I ain't worth the tears."_

She howls so loud that she won't be able to speak for many days after. Why did he make her howl for him? 

T'Challa is shaken. He falters away from the scene.

He is the victor, but he has lost. He has lost his sister. 

 

 

Ramonda understands. She will never admit it, but she understands her daughter. She too loved a man who broke her heart. 

 

 

Recovery is a slow process. Healing only begins when you admit you deserve something better. When you think you are _worth_ healing. 

Bucky Barnes thinks he deserves to die. But this young girl is trying to prove him wrong. She says she won't let him slip. Not _him_ too.

He doesn't know what that means, but when he looks into her eyes, his heart shrinks. She is too young for whatever stone she's tied around her neck. 

They walk across the meadow and stare at the dying sun together. Shuri twists her lips into a bittersweet smile. 

"I'm growing fond of sunsets," she tells him. 

"Why's that?" he asks, more to humor her.

"They remind me that nothing is ever really lost. There's always tomorrow." 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Genesis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13935672) by [Happy_Loner_Mushroom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happy_Loner_Mushroom/pseuds/Happy_Loner_Mushroom)




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